Three Years Older

Three years ago, on the 17th of April 2016, I launched this blog. In true me style, my first blog posts were about feminism, and how hard being a teenager is. Fifteen-year-old Tirion thought she’d run the blog for a bit and probably forget about it, but three years later, I’m so glad I stuck with it.

I knew when I was about fourteen that I wanted to explore journalism as a career. I would think of all the jobs I could possibly have, but I always came back to journalism; in some capacity, I think it’s what I always wanted to do. But trying to be a journalist when you’re fourteen and fifteen is hard, especially when you’re too shy to even put your hand up to ask to go to the toilet. I would apply to submit work to The Guardian and searched for work experience that would satisfy my craving to write what I wanted to write. But most companies like the BBC don’t let you apply for work experience until you’re at least eighteen, so I had to find my own outlet. Public speaking and BBC School News Report were great, but they were seasonal.

I remember sitting in the back of the car going somewhere and reading some magazine when I came across a piece about Tavi Gevinson, the Editor of Rookie (which unfortunately, has since released its final ever copy). She’s only a few years older than I am, but she’d started a blog before she was able to expand Rookie into this incredible magazine for teenagers that Teen Vogue could only dream to be. I remember my brother telling me that he’d heard of her, and that she was eleven when she’d started her own blog. I didn’t really know what a blog was, but upon further exploration, I realised that it was what I wanted. I found the website Wix and within a few weeks, just shy of turning sixteen, I finally launched my blog after much deliberation.

I thought my blog would be somewhere I could write whatever I wanted, and that it would be light-hearted, and more about whining about being sixteen and not being allowed to do things. But my blog gave me a chance to explore my beliefs and expand upon them. These days its far more common to read a post about something I’ve been outraged by in the news, as opposed to complaining about not being able to wear a coat in school.

I’ve grown up over the past three years, and I feel my blog is a reflection of that, and also a little bit of a reason for it. A lot of pretty shit things have happened in the past three years since I started my blog. Although I was following the news to an extent, I wasn’t really giving my own argument on the events. Because I wasn’t educating myself enough on the events which occurred on our newsfeeds, I wasn’t forming opinions. I was being passive, taking in the information but never really acknowledging its impact. Until I did. I used my blog as a way of understanding my own viewpoint, and further understood that maybe I could tell the story which was heard on the news in a way which made more sense to more people.

By continuing to write blog posts over the past three years, I’ve been able to improve my writing. I dare you to go back to my first post – the writing isn’t bad, it’s just not quite me anymore. I’ve learnt my writing style, and I think a little bit of me has stopped caring what a lot of people think, too. My blog posts aren’t supposed to be substitutes for newspaper articles, as there’s almost always a bias I don’t pretend to hide. But it doesn’t mean running a blog hasn’t helped to improve my writing skills in a journalistic capacity. The fact I know my blog posts probably couldn’t be real newspaper articles shows it’s helped.

If you’re thinking about starting a blog, I would always say do it. It doesn’t matter what anyone else thinks, if you feel passionately enough about something, do it – it’s not their blog anyway. My blog has helped me a lot, in all seriousness. Because I’ve practiced my written skills, I’ve since been Editor of my secondary school’s newspaper; started writing monthly articles for Wenvoe What’s On; gained work experience (and been published) in Buzz Magazine; been published on S4C’s Hacio website; gained a place at Cardiff University’s school of Journalism and been published in the University’s newspaper, Gair Rhydd. Most importantly to me, it’s given me more confidence to speak out about issues I care about. Although I’m always careful and aware of others’ views, I’m more open about my beliefs now and I know that they deserve to have a platform. It’s a platform I made myself, but sometimes if you want something done you’ve got to do it yourself.

It’s been three years, and although the blog posts are less often (guys, University’s actually a lot of work) I still love writing them. I’ve received some amazing feedback over the past three years, and it’s always nice to have someone say ‘I completely concur what you’ve just said, and I think you said it very well’ because it means I’ve reached someone.

I didn’t start a blog to be rich and famous, I started it for me. And boy how I’ve changed since I started it. But that’s okay. It’s good. It’s been for the better.

The past three years have been a whirlwind – albeit a little messy – but it’s been brilliant. I learned some new, fancy words (could you tell?) but I also learned more about me. I’ve got a lot more fire in me than I thought I had when I was fifteen. I mean, it’s probably always been there, I just never let it out.

Thank you for reading my blog. Even if you thought what I’d said was rubbish, thank you for taking the time to read a post. If you’ve sent me a message about one of my posts, know how much that truly does mean to me. If you’ve gone away and thought about what I’ve said and formed your own opinion, I thank you, too – I never intended to force my opinions on others, but to encourage you to forge your own. Thank you for setting aside a few minutes of your day to read even a few sentences of a post. Thank you for sticking with me since I was fifteen.

Thank you.

Thank you so much.